Interview: Hudson Taylor

Published on August 20th, 2012 | Jonny Abrams

Lawson front man Andy Brown recommended we check out Hudson Taylor when we spoke to him recently, so we fired some questions over to the Dublin-born, London-based duo in order to find out a little bit more about how they operate…

What’s the line-up of the band? How did you meet, and how long has the band been going for?

We’re brothers, Harry and Alfie Hudson-Taylor. We met when Harry was 1 and half years old. The band has been going for four years.

We’re from Dublin but we’re based in London now. We occasionally record in Dean St. Studios and sometimes we just use an MBox and a Condenser mic.

Are you signed to a label? If so, how did you come to their attention?

We’re not signed, but we had a lot of interest and hopefully we will sign soon. We came to their attention from word of mouth and being discovered on the street busking or on YouTube.

Is there a full album in the works? If so, what can you tell us about it? (Feel free to be as abstract as you like…)

We’re releasing our debut EP Battles on 27th August. It has four tracks: “Battles”, “Drop of Smoke”, “Hideaway” and “Left Alone”. We’re very happy with how it came out. It has quite quite a live feel sound. We didn’t go for anything production-wise that’s more complicated than what we can pull off in a live gig. Since we finished recording it though we have been writing a lot. We’ll hopefully have a debut album to release in 2013!

Which have been your most exciting gigs and/or overall moments so far?

Exciting gigs, playing in Hyde Park to a few hundred people during the Olympics was pretty special. Moving to London has been the best thing we’ve done so far as it has directly resulted in a lot of opportunities opening up to us.

Got any more coming up? (Gigs, that is…)

We’re playing a launch show for the EP on Wednesday, 22nd August. Then we’re playing a hoard of shows in Denmark.

Are there any obscure and/or up-and-coming acts that you’d like to recommend or give a shout-out to?

Our great friend Orla Gartland deserves a shout out. She’s a quirky 17-year-old ginger-haired Irish girl with an amazing online following and she just writes really good songs.